Marc Myers writes daily on jazz legends and legendary jazz recordings

June 26, 2014

History of American Rock

How did rock and roll become a multibillion dollar business and wind up as the sound of eternal youth? In this three-part BBC documentary, Born to Be Wild: The Golden Age of American Rock, all the strings are pulled together in a mostly smart video history of the rock album and tour. If there's a knock, some of the history seems built more around the artists they could get on camera rather than accurate research. Nevertheless, interesting stuff. A special thanks to Billy O'Hanluain for passing along the links. [Photo above of the late Alison Steele, a pioneering rock-album disk jockey on New York's WNEW-FM]

About

Marc Myers writes regularly for The Wall Street Journal and is author of "Anatomy of a Song" (Grove) and "Why Jazz Happened." Founded in 2007, JazzWax is a two-time winner of the Jazz Journalists Association's best blog award.